


Walls and Mirrors

by Paian



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: 1000-5000 Words, Character Study, Love, M/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-27
Updated: 2005-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-03 17:00:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paian/pseuds/Paian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daniel doesn't seem to have a private life. Jack's private life seems to be Daniel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walls and Mirrors

As far as anyone could tell, Daniel really didn't have a private life.

He had something like a social life, but that was wholly work-related. Drop into his office and you'd frequently find members of his staff there, asking him questions, showing him stuff, delivering assignments, whatever; drop in on him at home and you'd always find him by himself.

"Whatcha doin'?" Jack would ask, and the answer would be reading, or working, or listening to music, or staring at the wall. He stared at the wall a lot more than he admitted to, Jack thought. Trying to shut that overheated brain down. Let it rest. Give his eyes a break. Jack would stop by with pizza or Thai or subs -- Daniel called the sandwiches heroes, which never failed to make Jack laugh; Kawalsky used to call them hoagies and Carter called them grinders, but Jack stuck by the nomenclature of his boyhood and mocked the ignorance of those who thought "Italian beef" was Sylvester Stallone -- and nine times out of ten Daniel wouldn't even have eaten. There'd be a book in his hand, a mess of junk-food wrappers on the coffee table, his laptop on the kitchen table, some creepy-ass World Music on the stereo, and a glaze in his eyes. Three times the kettle was boiling, which seemed weird the first time since Daniel drank coffee, but it turned out to be for instant oatmeal or Cup-a-Soup, which for Mr. Still Lives Like a Broke Grad Student passed for a nutritious meal.

One time and one time only, Jack came up to the door and heard piano music inside. Daniel didn't own any Chopin CDs, so he figured it must be the radio. Somebody playing the Raindrop Prelude as if their heart was breaking. Jack didn't even knock at first, he got so caught up in the feeling going into that playing. His body gave a physical jerk when it cut off with a discordant mash of notes.

The piano had come with the furnished apartment. He'd had no idea that Daniel could play it. He'd had no idea that Daniel could play like _that_. Stupid, he thought; of course he'd be musical. Music was another language. But the way he'd stopped -- it was more than frustration. It sounded as though it had just hurt too much to continue.

He'd waited a long time -- waited through an eternity of silence until the radio came on to a hard-rock station and he was sure that Daniel wouldn't suspect he'd been overheard -- and then knocked and let himself in. The way he always did.

With the exception of the playing that one time, it was always the same. Daniel would be there alone. They'd eat, play cards, hang out; when it got late, he'd either crash on the sofa or drag himself home. A day or two later he'd call and tell Daniel to come over, watch a game, help him with some repair job, whatever. Daniel never begged off because of some other commitment. He was always available. If he was in the middle of some work, he'd just sling a bookbag and his laptop over his shoulder and set up at Jack's. No notice was too short.

The truth was, if Jack had been backed into a corner and had to answer the question about whether Daniel had a private life, he'd have had to say, _Yeah. I'm it._

Two, three, even four times a week, one of them was over at the other's place. It was a lot more fraternizing than he was supposed to be doing, kinda pushing it on that conduct thing, but so much about the SGC was whacked, and compared with the unbecoming conduct that used to beckon, it was nothing, so he didn't think about it. If he'd been forced to think about it, articulate it, he'd have said, Yeah, well, two guys from busted marriages, not much else goin' on, what the hell, the company doesn't suck.

Carter had no life and he didn't go bug her after work; he couldn't imagine himself hanging out with her alone, regs or no. And do what? Talk about what? He brought Teal'c out as often as he could, but half the time they ended up grabbing Daniel too, and Teal'c was busy more often than you'd think. Teal'c wasn't always available. Teal'c had a private life -- a neat trick, considering he lived in quarters.

Jack could have had other stuff going on. Had enough women available to him, though he hadn't responded to flirtation in a long time, not seriously, and for a lot of reasons; got invited to enough cardgames, ballgames, bar crawls. But having other stuff going on was just too damn taxing. Too much effort to make when he was wiped out from his job.

OK, the tiredness -- that was an excuse. He hadn't really enjoyed being with other people since his kid and his marriage died; pretty much left the whole socializing thing behind with his suburban family life. Hanging out with Daniel ... well, they'd known each other a long time. Same security clearance, didn't have to watch what they said. Silence was companionable. Conversation was easy. Seemed like Daniel was content with that; or too tired to mind defaulting to it.

Or, which Jack thought was more likely, Daniel had martyred himself to his lost wife. Jack had pretty much done the same. Came a point where you figured you'd had your shot, that was it, not gonna happen for you again. Where you learned how to make do. Learned to live pretty much in isolation.

He and Daniel seemed to be living in isolation side by side.

He didn't think much about it. He didn't think much about how he was intentionally not thinking much about it. The unexamined life is a hell of a lot easier on everybody. He didn't think much about it when Daniel started coming by on his own, without needing an invitation or waiting for one; dropping by at odd hours -- late at night or very early in the morning, before-dawn early, tail-end-of-the-night early -- just to sit and stare at Jack's TV or Jack's walls. He didn't think much about it when those all-hours arrivals changed over to more frequent and longer evening and weekend visits. He didn't think much about it when in Daniel's absence he started to get antsy, hungry, itchy and in Daniel's presence he could hang out for hours, content to do nothing. When Daniel was with him, in private, away from the job, he could just be whatever was left of him to be, and he didn't have to think at all. The more Daniel was with him, the less he had to think about anything when Daniel wasn't.

So when Jack went out for beers with a couple of other team leaders one Friday night -- technically fraternizing too, but an exception he made to celebrate a promotion -- and let his eye drift away from the bar and across the restaurant in a lazy sweep because he'd been a commando for a long time and you never lost the habit of scanning surroundings, and his gaze caught on Daniel coming through the front door, laughing, turning to say something to the person behind him, shrugging out of his coat and shaking rain off it, he thought he was seeing things. Because it was Daniel. Walking into a restaurant. In the outside world. With someone Jack didn't recognize.

Another guy. And all the body language from that guy -- the lingering touch low on the back when he passed Daniel to get seated, the chair tucked in close, the just-too-far lean over the table -- screaming that this wasn't just a collegial meal.

Sha're had been gone for four years, dead for nearly a year of that. This wasn't another woman; Daniel hadn't looked at another woman since Ke'ra, which maybe made Ke'ra his test case and explained all the not-looking since; except for Ke'ra Daniel hadn't looked at another woman since he'd met Sha're. He was soft-spoken and impeccably mannered around women -- when he even treated them like women, which he didn't, for the most part; people were people, to Daniel -- and their advances bounced off his sphere of apparently absentminded oblivion like water droplets off a balloon. There was a distance to him, an otherworldiness, a kind of abstraction, as though part of him always lived on some higher plane or deep in thoughts ineffable to the ordinary human. _Boing_, the women went. _Boing_. They left bemused, unoffended. They never got near him.

Until Jack saw him with this guy, Jack hadn't realized how much he had taken that for granted.

Daniel's Teflon resistance to romantic overtures.

Daniel's sexuality.

Jack assessed the situation within thirty seconds. Had to direct the other team leaders' attention elsewhere; couldn't get them out the front door without them scoping Daniel and exactly what was going on with his pal, and the basketball game on the overhead TV wasn't holding enough of their interest. Sure as hell couldn't go over and say hi, not that he would have done that anyway; was glad for an excuse not to. He gestured to the pool table, just emptying. Got the guys into the back of the place and playing straight pool before either of them scanned the joint on their next habitual sweep. Stood them beers and kept the cute waitress around chatting to head off any need for them to go to the bar.

Pretty much had it covered, if Daniel hadn't had to use the men's room.

Jack followed him in, blocking the guys' view until the door had closed. "Hey, Daniel."

A surprise worthy of three whole blinks. "Hey, Jack." No caught-out look in the eyes, no suspicion; plain old surprise, and just a hint of exasperated _Yeah, this figures_. Daniel went over to the urinal, used it; Jack washed his hands for no reason. Into the mirror, to Daniel's backwards back, he said he was here having a couple of beers, playing a few rounds of pool with Grybek and Stainton. Daniel said, "Huh," shook his dick, tucked and zipped, flushed. "I'm having dinner out in the restaurant."

"Yeah," Jack said, finishing his scan of the stalls. "About that."

Daniel came over, started washing his hands. Looked inquiry at Jack in the mirror.

Jack grabbed a paper towel, dried his hands, scored a three-pointer into the wastebasket, leaned a hip on the nearest sink. "Your guy's giving off a vibe," he said. "I pulled these two jarheads back here just in case. But I wouldn't linger over coffee if you get my drift."

There were times when the blue of Daniel's eyes could be the color of glacial ice. "I get your drift," he said.

"Don't start," Jack said, raising a finger, before he started.

"I'm having dinner with a friend of mine from the museum," Daniel said, very slowly and clearly.

Just as slowly, just as clearly, Jack said, "I'm not askin', Daniel, I'm tellin'. The truth doesn't matter, only what they see."

Daniel reached past him to snatch a paper towel from the wall dispenser. "Jesus Christ," he said. "_I'm having dinner_."

"Yeah," Jack said. The one syllable came out tight, and kind of hollow. In the piss-scented porcelain-and-stainless-steel space, Daniel's scent had washed over him in a sweetness of familiarity. Cut with an unfamiliar tang. Cologne. His gut twisted; for a half-second he was glad to be next to a sink. "Yeah," he said again, and left the men's room while Daniel was still wadding up his paper towel, and distracted the guys until Daniel had passed back through. Then he stood them a round of shots. It was a race between their drunkenness and Daniel's dessert.

By the time he was shouldering them out of there and into his truck to drive them home, Daniel and his museum friend had gone.

Jack wouldn't always be there. The Springs wasn't a big town. The Springs wasn't a town forgiving of behavior like Daniel's friend's.

Maybe Daniel could pull it off. The guy hadn't been all over him. Nothing physical, nothing overt. Two guys having dinner. Obvious university types. Casual jackets, slacks, shop talk. Nobody else in the place had blinked an eye.

But the guy had looked at Daniel the way every woman on base looked at him, and Daniel had smiled, and laughed. Daniel had _responded_.

Maybe if you didn't know him, you'd think that was just how he was. A man with laughter sparkling in his eyes, a man who raised his head to make eye contact. An open, charming man.

Maybe that was how he was. Maybe it was Jack who didn't know him.

So Daniel had a private life. Fine. Long past time he got back in the game. Jack had issued his warning; the rest was up to Daniel. He was a civilian. It was his business. His private business.

Daniel was opening up. Getting out.

Good for him.

Jack drove home from Grybek's place feeling gut-punched.

Daniel was sitting on his front step.

"What happened to your keys?" Jack asked, pushing the truck's door closed.

"There seem to be circumstances," Daniel said, rising in an enviable fluidity of cartilage. "Under the circumstances, I didn't think I should use them."

"There are no circumstances," Jack said, opening his front door. Daniel didn't follow him inside. He turned, aggravated. "You coming in or what?"

Daniel came in. He shut the door behind him. He didn't take his coat off, didn't shake the light mist from it.

Jack leaned against his hallway wall, his jacket still on, his keys still in his hand. "So?"

"So, what?"

"No. We're not doing that. Talk or leave."

"I'm not defending my behavior to you."

_So what are you doing here? Go screw your museum guy, Daniel. Or get screwed. Whatever you do._ "OK," Jack said, drawing the syllables out. " ... So?"

"So _what_?"

"You came here, Daniel, you tell me!"

"I had dinner. That's all."

"You had dinner and then you drove here and sat on my step for two hours."

"Not exactly."

Jack swore, shrugged out of his jacket, tossed it at a dining-room chair. "I get a bum rap, you know that? I get pegged as Mr. Uncommunicative. You take the cake." He half turned, but he didn't know what he intended to do. He turned back. "So you decided not to sleep with the guy. Or maybe you stopped by between dinner and the fuck; that's ... weird, but whatever. You don't get points, or absolution, or permission, or me talking you out of it, or whatever this is about. It's none of my business. OK? It's a non-issue. I won't barge in on you anymore, I'll call first or you can tie a string on your doorknob. Nothing else has to change. Does that address your concerns?"

Slowly, Daniel nodded. "I suppose it does."

Jack desperately wanted him to take his coat off. Jack wished he'd just used his damn keys, wished he'd just been flaked out on the sofa when Jack came in, wished he hadn't insisted on Circumstances with a capital C. Jack didn't want to have to think; he still felt like he'd taken a knee to the solar plexus and he just wanted to sit and do nothing until the feeling wore off.

He just wanted to sit and do nothing with Daniel sitting beside him. The way he had for three days after he got out of the hospital after Antarctica. The way he had every night for a week after he came back from Edora. The way he had for the long weekend after the double whammy with the replicators.

They were standing against opposite walls of the hallway, him with his coat off and Daniel with his coat on, and it was as if the continental divide had been resurveyed to run straight through his house and he missed the memo.

_So you staying, or what?_ He clamped the words in. They were stupid words; he'd told Daniel to talk or leave and then basically shut him down, and Daniel still had his coat on. They were craven words, because Daniel was fluent in Gruff Jack and he'd hear the plea in them. And the answer might be "or what." His museum guy was probably waiting for him across town, enough candles to kel-no-reem by, sherry in little fluted glasses, soft jazz on the stereo, soft sparkle of anticipation in the air ... or in a tousle of damp bedding, sated and sleeping, unaware that Daniel had slipped out, little note on the pillow, _won't be long, go back to sleep_ ...

"Jack?"

"Right here, Daniel."

"Are you sleeping with Sam?"

A jolt went through Jack's body. "No."

"Because everything you said to me in that restroom, you know ... You should have looked in the mirror."

"I've looked _through_ the mirror," Jack said. "I've _walked_ through the mirror. Different me, different Carter."

"But the truth doesn't matter. Only what they see."

"Don't hold me to the letter of that. I was giving you an out if you wanted to play it straight."

"I'm over here all the time. You're over at my place all the time. Appearance of impropriety."

"You gonna ask me if I'm sleeping with _you_ now?"

"Are you sleeping with _anybody_?"

"And how the hell is that your business?"

They stared at each other across the narrow hallway. Jack glared; Daniel stared back, not being glared down. Not cowed into silence, either; considering his next statement the way you'd consider whether or not to pull out the big guns. Jack shifted his glare to the blinds over the window, trying to master his irritation, and thumped back against his wall, hard enough to hear a picture frame slide a hair out of alignment in the dead quiet.

"We've been using each other," Daniel said. "For company. Companionship."

"That's what friends do."

"Not like this. Not like ... a crutch, like this."

Jack stopped himself from snapping off a quick comeback and made himself give it serious consideration. If he'd thought about it much, he might have wondered, he supposed. Whether he was using Daniel as a comfortable fallback so he didn't have to make an effort with somebody else. Whether Daniel was too easy a default.

On his way up out of the mountain, he hadn't been real keen on the prospect of beers with the guys; he'd thought about how he'd rather swing by Daniel's with a six-pack and watch the Bulls kick some Miami ass. But what he'd thought about wasn't the comfort of Daniel's living room compared with a barstool. It was the pleasure of Daniel's piquant sports analysis compared with the uninformed macho bluster of the two servicemen. Watching sports with the guys -- that was easy, a familiar routine of griping and grunting and shouting, the lines as good as scripted; watching sports with Daniel was _interesting_. Challenging. Fun.

He had no inclination to date; his gut clenched again and his mind shied away from the thought of charming, estranged Daniel in that restaurant, but the feeling of _better him than me_ was just as strong. He never wanted to go through that song-and-dance again. If he went out for a nice meal, he wanted a familiar presence to share it with, not someone new and unknown he had to watch his language with, watch his attitudes, observe and assess; he wanted reliably engaging conversation, he wanted to enjoy the food and the ambience without the stress and the inevitable pretense.

He wanted Daniel on the other side of any dinner table he sat down at.

He wanted the Daniel he'd seen tonight, and that was not, not, _not_ a place he could let his head go. After seeing him sparkle like that -- not at the end of a library table with a very pretty, very brilliant, very female scientist this time, but across a dinner table from a very handsome, very interested, very male colleague --

No. Not thinking about that. Were there constructive things he'd be doing if he weren't hanging out with Daniel? He'd tried coaching peewee hockey, the first year of the program, and missed half the practices and had to bow out. Tickets to shows and ballgames sat in the top drawer of his office desk, free for the taking when he was stuck offworld or in briefings; Siler and Harriman had some kind of distribution system. He drove by the youth center all the time, drove by and checked for a parking spot and never hit the brake, never parked, never walked in the door; it punched more Charlie buttons than visiting Cassie's school, and he'd do more harm than good, letting down his end of any relationship he started to build. He played a monthly poker game with a couple of deputies in the local sheriff's department, but he almost always swung by Daniel's place afterwards. Just to get a hit of him. A pleasure he craved more than a good hand, a good beer, a good cigar.

It might be an addiction, but it wasn't a crutch. What wasn't going on with him would have been not-going-on, Daniel or no Daniel.

"Speaking for myself," he said, finally, honestly, "not so much with the crutch. But maybe that's what it is for you. So you're doing something about it. That's good. Real happy for ya."

"Actually," Daniel said, as if he were reading some illuminating text off the inside of his skull and translating it on the fly, "I think what I've been trying to figure out is which one I'm using as the substitute."

A snarling surge of aggravation and mockery came up Jack's throat: _What, I'm not paying enough attention to you now?_ There was terror, too, sourceless and panicked, and a dark angry twist of _christ daniel don't, don't corner me_. "How do you mean?" he said, careful and level, but hearing the undertones of warning in his own voice.

Daniel looked at him for a long time. Finally he said, "I don't know. There's something missing. Something important I'm not getting. But I can't see it." He gave his head a small shake, as if shaking off a memory, or a dream. His eyes cleared. "I guess I just wanted to make sure we were still OK. I guess I'll go."

He seemed to mean that he would go, but he made no move to move.

"Stay," Jack said. "Take your coat off. Take a load off. Half-hour of Conan O'Brian left." When Daniel hesitated, he remembered, and his stomach gave a sick, guilty flip. "Crap. Sorry. I forgot." He came up off his wall and waved to the door. "Don't let me keep you. Gimme a call if you're free over the weekend."

Daniel looked at the door as if he'd had no idea he was standing next to it, with his coat on, this whole time. "What?"

"You left your museum guy waiting somewhere, right?"

"It wasn't a date, Jack."

Daniel, the master of neither-confirm-nor-deny. Jack sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. "It was from where he was sitting, Daniel. Trust me on this." He took a breath and made himself smile. "But OK. Yeah. Whatever." On an exhausted, unexamined impulse, he crossed to Daniel and wrapped him up in a hug. Rested on him for a second, dense woolly weight in his arms, sweet-acrid whiff of tired cologne, the faint chill of the outdoors somehow still in his coat and his hair. He pressed his cheek against the side of Daniel's head and said, "I love you, Daniel. That never changes. You do whatever makes you happy." He laid his hand on the spiky-soft hair, gave it a tousle, then a couple of pats as he pushed back. He smiled at the dazed look. Squeezed the shoulder, hard muscle under the wool, coat stretched tight, gonna need a new wardrobe if he kept lifting with Teal'c. Reached for the door and stepped with it as he opened it. "Watch your speed on the road. They're cracking down on weekends. Traps up the wazoo."

Daniel stepped through, blinking, and then turned. "Jack ... what makes you happy?"

Jack's smile came back, wider, because he was too tired and wrung-out to get torqued about this anymore, and when that sweet, familiar face turned to him all he ever really wanted to do was smile, and he was thinking that he spent way too much energy trying not to let Daniel see that, and the answer was clear and simple and really nothing to get torqued about at all. "You," he said. "You, Daniel."

Daniel smiled back a little. Puzzled, curious, looking for that missing piece. "Just don't hold you to that at work on Monday?"

Jack shrugged. "This hasn't been about work in a long time." He gestured with his chin toward Daniel's car at the curb. "Go on. Watch the walk, it still looks wet."

Halfway down to his car, Daniel turned again, hands in his coat pockets. "Jack?"

"Mm-hm?"

Daniel opened his mouth, stopped, then said, "I'll ... call you tomorrow. Late morning? You'll be up?"

"You bet," Jack said, gripping the door, leaning. Light spilling from the hall reflected off wet leaves in the shrubs, the bricks in the walk, glistening. The air smelled cold and fresh and clean. "G'night, Daniel."

"Night," Daniel said, with a brief wobble in his voice as he slid half an inch and then caught his balance, made it around to the driver's side of his car, soft murmur of his swearing at the smooth-soled loafers he had on.

Jack watched Daniel into the car, and watched the car off down the street. Then he eased his white-knuckled grip off the door and closed it on the sparkle of light down the front path, and thought about the guy who played the Raindrop Prelude as if his heart was breaking, and wondered how he was going to stand what he knew, now, and why the hell he was still smiling anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> '[Reporting for Duty](http://archiveofourown.org/works/76122)' gives the point of view of Stainton and Grybek, the two team leaders Jack was out drinking with that night.
> 
> '[Three Ways "Walls and Mirrors" Didn't Go](http://paian.dreamwidth.org/182370.html)' gives three alternative endings to the fic.


End file.
